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The gamer’s mantra is, “Fail early, fail often,” and it’s a philosophy with implications that extend way beyond World of Warcraft.
Gaming experts are noticing that young adults who have grown up on gaming are showing some fail early, fail often tendencies in other areas as well: discovering and learning new technologies, exploring social boundaries, and generally going about life’s activities. It’s a strategy worth considering.
Video gaming is designed to be about trial and error. Players don’t approach a new level knowing exactly what needs to be accomplished and how to do it. Most free-form games require the player to explore unknown spaces, unlock hidden objects by stumbling on them, and die shockingly on occasion. Of course, the balance to this is that most games created in this format are designed so that you can pick up relatively close to where you left off before you were incinerated/eaten/whacked. So instead of trying to play a new game perfectly, gamers are trained to advance quickly and pick up necessary skills by failing early and failing often. In fact, if you’re not failing, you’re probably not playing as the game was intended.
Failing early and often provides the reward of steady, continued progress with few lasting consequences. Huh. Imagine that. Meanwhile, blind luck may get you ahead momentarily, but without the skills and knowledge you need to move on to greater challenges.
Failing Upward
Of course, there’s more to fail early, fail often than just running at a level boss wildly and pushing every button at once. One of the first tactics gamers use is figuring out their strengths. This means trying out different combinations of moves and observing the results. Knowing what skills work in each situation is a primary goal.
Next, gamers will explore their surroundings in a measured, meaningful way. In other words, after finding your strengths, you need to learn your limitations. Where can you go? Where do you need to do something extra to gain access? What pathways look open and which are closed?
Once you’ve know your strengths and limitations, there’s just one thing left to do: take action. Try something. Anything. Did it work? If so, remember what you did and move on. If not, try something else. Gamers don’t (generally) get embarrassed when they try something that doesn’t work. They just regroup, pick a new tactic or strategy and try again. It’s all part of playing the game. They haven’t lost a thing, they’ve simply added a new piece of knowledge to their arsenal.
That’s really what fail early, fail often comes down to: each “failure” adds to your expertise while subtracting nothing. Not all things in life can be treated like a video game, but if you’re stuck in neutral—or worse, in analysis paralysis–reconsider your definition of failure, and consider trying it.
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Comments
12.05.08
Great analogy Sara. As an occassional gamer myself - it's a nice spin to apply to day-to-day living. I think if more people weren't so afraid (or embarassed) to fail, they'd get faster results and learn a lot more in the long run.
12.05.08
This worked for me. I crashed and burned so many times in my 20s I don't even remember them all. But it made me strong. I never thought it would, but it did.
12.05.08
Interesting to think about success and action in terms of play.
We would never learn anything if as children we thought, "I am really not a very good mother in this game of house. This mud pie recipe would never work in real life."
Instead, we just play, and it's ok if thing don't work out right, because the stakes are low, or really, we aren't even aware of the concept of stakes yet. I think really, that's where some of the fear of failure comes in when we get older.
Our idea about the stakes is raised. Or, we're just aware there are stakes at all. When it's life and not a "just a game" (though I know most gamers would never say anything remotely like that.) And so anyway, in life, we over dramatize everything and think each little turn or decision has some overwhelmingly huge ability to direct every future turn or decision. Maybe that's true, but what's the sense worrying about it if it keeps us from moving at all?
12.06.08
This topic was also brought up in a class of mine with the same points. As a gamer myself, I definitely can see the relevance. Also, because gamers are used to complex scenarios within games, they tend to be able to grasp complicated situations at work as well and are able to figure them out.
Tiffany's comment reminds me of Ender's Game. Had Ender known the stakes of the final "game", and that it was really the final battle with the bugs, would the outcome have been different?
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